Big boys don’t cry

Posted by Ricki Sharpe on February 4, 2008  
Filed Under Stress

When it comes to our emergency and protective services personnel, we like them tough. Not only physically tough, but also mentally tough. We don’t expect the fire brigade, police, various rescue agencies or our armed services to fall in a heap under stress. We expect them to tough out those difficult times. Psychologists call this toughness under stress, psychological hardiness.

Psychological hardiness is an important characteristic associated with stress tolerance and successful performance in highly demanding occupations. Available research suggests that high hardiness persons appraise stressful tasks as less threatening, show higher frustration tolerance, and use more problem-focused and support-seeking coping strategies than low hardiness persons.

There is no more extreme example of workplace stress than the battlefield. In an early study, Paul T. Bartone, Ph.D., of the U.S. Military Academy at West Point found that hardiness protected Army reserve personnel mobilised for the Persian Gulf War in the early 1990s. In this study, the higher the hardiness level, the greater the ability of soldiers to experience combat-related stress without apparent negative health consequences, such as post traumatic stress disorder or depression.

In a more recent study, Bartone (2008) assessed 1138 US Army Special Forces candidates for psychological hardiness using the Dispositional Resilience Scale. These scores were then applied to predict successful completion of the course. Results confirmed that Special Forces course graduates are significantly higher in psychological hardiness, compared to non-graduates.

Military Special Forces represent a high-reliability occupation, where stress levels are often intense and failure can be costly. Selection for such jobs should pay careful attention to psychological factors associated with resiliency under stress.

Reference

Bartone, P. T. (1999). Hardiness protects against war-related stress in army reserve forces. Consulting Psychology Journal: Practice and Research, 51, 72-82.
Bartone, P. T., Roland, R. R., Picano, J. J. & Williams, T. J. (2008). Psychological hardiness predicts success in US Army Special Forces candidates. International Journal of Selection and Assessment, 16, 78–81.


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